There are three curious events from Greece out of Monday's theater of political chat.
First, Greece had political meetings engaged til after midnight, and came out to say that they wanted a committee formed on who-to-blame for the current economic crisis.
They didn't say who exactly would be on the committee or how they'd use the information later (charges or just more talk). One might speculate that it's an attempt to just make sure the "right people" get blamed and the "right people" get a free ticket around the blame game. You pay members of the blame-committee some type of bribe, and you barely get mentioned. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but that's typically the goal and strategy to get on a great blame-committee position.
Second, the Greeks have finally come to the mythical and magic number on German reparations. It's roughly 287.7 billion (give or take) Euro.
A guy would ponder upon the magic number and how it works. Greece says that 10.3 billion Euro relate to the loan that Germany forced Greece to perform in WW II.....which the documents signed indicated that it was a "loan" and there was no interest to gather on the loan.
The rest of the 287.7 billion? The rest would be a settlement to the families of victims and to cover buildings, structures and bridges destroyed during the war.
The likely nature of Germany to pay this back? There's a serious question over the loan, and I could see some possible German deal for the 10.3 billion (maybe spread over a number of months or years). Naturally, the bulk of Germans won't be happy with this, and it might affect some political careers for those pressing for the deal. I don't think Chancellor Merkel will be a keen supporter of the idea, but she has barely three years left.
The rest of this money? Germany paid a settlement back in the 1950s/1960s for the damages to private citizens and families.....so it's odd that this topic would come up again. As for the destruction of public property.....it might be curious if there's a full listing of such destroyed or damaged property. I would question if such a list exists.....and if this damages amount was just a round estimated number with no concrete evidence.
Third? There's this hint to another election. Some folks have become disenchanted with the actions of the present leadership and suggest that it's time already to replace these guys. The odds of an election? Right now, I'd give it a ten-percent chance. In three months.....things might deteriorate and I might push it up to fifty-fifty. The group of parties that control the government stood there and made promises to the public on how they'd perform. If they don't honor the promises.....there's enough hostilities to drag this off to a new election.
Frankly, I'd have doubts that another election would do much except make things more confused and just convince the EU to dump Greece as soon as possible.
Screwed up? I'd sum the weekend events as being more of 'theater' than 'nation-building'. If I were on the present political party in charge.....I wouldn't waste much time on planning statues to our success in life or politics.
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